When you're first starting out I recommend that you leave map contacts on. Then with your pencil, plot a target position, then another position after 3 minutes. Measure the distance between the two points with your compass. The number of hundred yards between the two points is the speed in knots.
Now you can extend a line between the two points and forward in the direction of travel. With your protractor you can measure the target's course.
This is MUCH more accurate than the stadimeter auto speed and course thing, which is ALWAYS wrong.
If you wish, you can transition to finding the two positions with stadimeter and plotting them manually with map contacts off. Or you can find the 2 positions by active sonar and manually plot them.
I find that map contacts on is just as historically accurate so long as you are equipped with radar. Real radar gave more accurate measurements than our game with map contacts on anyway because the radar was analog and the game has binning from its digital nature.
They also had an entire crew assisting them, a whole collections of tools we don't have a clue about in the game and binocular vision with peripheral capability giving them a much fuller perception of their environment than we have. At best, SH4 lets you experience some of the experience, make some of the decisions and experience some of the dilemmas real submariners did.
But getting all nitpicky about realism is kinda foolish in a game where realism isn't on the menu. You can't even get cold and wet for 4 hours standing watch in freezing rain!
So play in a way that can teach you the concepts of torpedo targeting. That's about the extent of possible realism here anyway. Leave the map contacts on, especially at first. And consult the fun meter once in awhile. If it isn't at 75% or better, change the way you're playing.
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